The Stuyvesant School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

In the magical world, Stuyvesant High School is better known as the Stuyvesant School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, named after the Dutch goblin trader and wizard Peter Stuyvesant, and is considered the best school of magic in the United States of America.

Stuyvesant is not a boarding school and therefore requires its students to arrive at the school using Muggle transportation, such as the subway trains and buses. “We want our students to come to school every day using Muggles’ way of commuting to help them understand the equality that exists between wizards and Muggles,” Seung Yu, the current headmaster and head wizard of Stuyvesant, said. “We believe that learning about the Muggle world is very important to becoming a truly successful wizard or witch.”

Stuyvesant is usually considered one of the top three schools of magic, along with the Bronx School of Theurgy and the Brooklyn Alchemical School. For admissions, all the schools of magic in New York, except for the Fiorello H. LaGuardia School of Illusions, use a test called the SHSAT, or the Sorcerer’s Hex Setting Ability Test. With selective and competitive admission comes challenging courses and a heavy workload. To graduate, Stuyvesant students are required to take three years of Runes, Old Norse, Ogham, or Enochian; learn transfiguration into mermen and be able to swim in that form; and take at least one theurgy elective. Students are constantly troubled by their grades. Walking through the hallways, voices complaining about AP Astrology projects and Necromancy unit tests can always be heard

“I got a 65 on my Prophecy test!”

“At least Markova didn’t turn you into a frog, dude.”

Stuyvesant also does not allow its students to use any electronic devices while on campus. According to headmaster Yu, this rule was established because these Muggle inventions are unrelated to magic and would only distract students from magical studies. Mr. Moran, the Assistant Principal (a.k.a. “That Salty Squib”), roams around in the hallway and collects any electronic devices held by students. Rumor has it that there is a secret chamber hidden in Mr. Moran’s office where he puts all the phones he collects. Besides Mr. Moran, the chamber only opens to those who can speak Hudsontongue (the language of the Hudson River Basilisk).

To get a better sense of what life at Stuyvesant is like, we interviewed two students and asked them how they feel about their experience at school. “I only get three hours of sleep every night,” Lindy Fu, a current sophomore with heavy dark circles around her eyes, complained. “My AP Divination teacher makes us write a whole essay analyzing our dreams every day. We also have to include an illustration of the dream with a motion spell casted. I mean, I like the drawing part, but my dreams are always about failing classes because that’s my biggest fear, and [my teacher] started giving me low scores because she thinks I’m making it up. Like, for real?”

Junior Freda Dong also made a similar testimony on the effect the overwhelming workload has on her life. “I’m so busy with schoolwork that I don’t even have time to eat anymore. I get so much homework from Honors Herbology and AP Potions, and it takes me four hours to finish the homework for these two subjects alone every night. Goblin Studies gives a quiz every week and it’s stressing me out. I’m also in [Stuy] Glow, which takes up a lot of my time, too…” She shook her head as she described her busy schedule.

Besides an enormous amount of course choices, Stuyvesant also offers a variety of extracurricular activities so students can pursue magic in their time outside of the classroom. Stuy Glow, mentioned above, is a club where members use luminous magic to light up their wands and do choreography in the dark. There’s also Stuyvesant Alchemy Olympiad, which competes against other schools of magic on knowledge of alchemy, and Stuy Dust (the golems team) builds golems out of different materials such as clay and mud, casting different spells to make the golems function in various ways, and presents them at tournaments. Finally, there’s The Stuyvesant Spectator, founded in 1915. Writers of The Spectator craft fantastic articles that primarily revolve around the lives of Stuyvesant students (with moving letters that rearrange into different articles!), accompanied by bizarre works of art and beautiful photos that also move because of the motion spells cast upon them. Every two weeks, new issues of The Spectator are brought and distributed to students by pigeons (aye, come on—we can't have a bunch of owls flying around in New York.)

Graduates of Stuyvesant usually receive offers from reputable private universities that offer magical majors. Notable alumni of Stuyvesant include alchemist Ronald Safran, dragon-slayer Billy Eichner, and necromancer Lisa Randall. Many deceased alumni have decided to stay at Stuyvesant as ghosts. If you ever need to find them, they usually hang out in the Hudson Staircase. However, you might not be so inclined—the ghouls in the Senior Atrium are considered friendlier. If you are struggling with schoolwork, going to the merpeople in the 11th floor pool (accessed by magic) is usually a safe choice. They provide free one-on-one tutoring in all subjects as long as you don’t touch the pool water.

Though the Stuyvesant School of Witchcraft and Wizardry demonstrates outstanding student performance and achievements, the students at this school certainly do not find it easy to balance their schoolwork and grades with extracurricular activities and free time. For students who have received an offer from this school, they should consider if they want to walk this difficult path. If the answer is yes, then in the next four years of high school, they need to be ready to constantly stress over their grades, be harrassed by the ghosts of dead alumni and stinky ghouls who love to hit on freshmen, and fight against the Hudson River Basilisk. Also, the Stuyvesant diploma still requires four years of gym. Magic? Naur—just four years sweating it out in those ugly uniforms.